Candy Canes at Christmas Services
In 1670 the Cologne Cathedral choirmaster in Germany bent warm sugar sticks to form the shape of a shepherd’s staff. He gave the all-white candy canes to the children in the choir to keep them quiet during a long-winded service. The practice of giving out candy canes became a tradition at Christmas services in Europe.
Candy Canes as Christmas Tree Decorations
As the Christmas tree became part of the celebrations in the mid 19th Century, European Christians made special foods like cookies and sugar stick candy to decorate them. German-Swedish immigrant August Imgard of Wooster, Ohio decorated a small blue spruce tree with candy canes and paper ornaments in 1847 to the delight of children in the family. The results inspired others in his community to do the same and the idea became widespread.
About fifty years later, the first striped candy canes appeared. It is not known who invented the stripes, but Victorian-era cards show only white candy canes displayed as tree decorations. At about the same time that candy makers added peppermint and wintergreen flavours early in the 1900s, the red and white stripes appeared in illustrations on Christmas cards.
Bob McCormack of Albany, Georgia
In 1919 Bob McCormack of Albany, Georgia left his job at a biscuit company to start a candy making operation. He had been making candy canes as special treats at Christmastime for his children and friends, and for sale at local shops. That was a labour-intensive process with pulling, twisting, cutting and bending the candy by hand.
With financial backing of his former boss, two friends, and his uncle he established the company, now known as Bobs Candies, Inc. They made a large variety of candies and snack foods, but it was their mass production of the candy cane that ensured its place as part of Christmas tradition.
McCormack's brother-in-law, Catholic priest Gregory Keller, invented a machine in the 1950s that automated the twisting of the soft candy into the defining spiral look. With the invention, the usual laborious process of creating the treats was eliminated and the popularity of the candy cane grew.
Myths and Religious Symbolism
Some believe that a man in Indiana who wanted to teach religious symbolism to children made the first candy canes. The candy cane’s history began long before that of Indiana.
Some people have added more meaning to the candy cane than originally intended by drawing it into the symbolisms of the Christmas season as it is celebrated as a sacred event. They maintain that the white body of the cane represents the life that is pure, and that the red stripe symbolizes the Lord’s sacrifice.
Candy canes were not originally made to represent the letter “J” for Jesus or the Shepherd’s crook. The “J” shape may have come from early candy makers who cut the strips while they were warm and the sticks became misshapen.
With regard to the theological ideas purported to be the origin of candy canes, Barbara Mikkelson commented on the Urban Legends References Pages, “It’s charming folklore at best, and though there’s nothing wrong with Christians now finding (and celebrating) symbolism where there wasn’t any before, there is something wrong with myths being presented as fact.”
Source:
National Confectioners Association
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